


Fail Or Fly

by shootingdaggers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Luna Is My Queen, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Luna Lovegood, Rare Pairings, Unless you think angst is hea, canon violence, non-graphic, not a HEA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 08:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14540514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingdaggers/pseuds/shootingdaggers
Summary: A chance meeting in the girls' bathroom starts an unexpected friendship, preparing for dark days with memories of light.





	Fail Or Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Blue Jeans, by Lana Del Rey  
> This piece was part of the Sing Me A Rare B:Side OS Competition Spring/Summer 2018. I had a choice of song and I could chose my own pairing. All characters, spells, magical equipment and locations from the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling.  
> I'd like to thank my alpha who will be unveiled at the end of this competition.

     

_But when you walked out that door, a piece of me died_

_Told you I wanted more- that’s not what I had in mind_

_I just want it like before_

_We were dancin' all night_

_Then they took you away- stole you out of my life_

_You just need to remember_

 

It wasn’t every day that a Malfoy dropped into the girls’ bathrooms.

Luna favoured the abandoned bathroom on the opposite side of the castle not for the view of the vast lake, or the way the wind whipped at the high boughs above, but because it had the best taps.

They curled around themselves, metal vines twisted into curved plumes to cast its waterfall beneath. Luna sometimes turned them on and sat with her back to them, listening to the flow going down the drain like raindrops down a gutter.

On this day in a dreary December, before the school splintered to celebrate the birth of an important Muggle saint, Luna contemplated spending an hour with the water to guide her thoughts when a bathroom stall door creaked open.

A tall, lanky boy who’d grown lankier by the day stumbled out of the cubicle and froze as his pale eyes set on Luna. His blonde hair fell about his fair face, and he stood taller.

“What are you doing here?” Malfoy demanded, in the typical Malfoy tone most everyone in Hogwarts had come to dislike.

 “It’s the girls’ bathroom,” Luna said simply. “Did you get lost?”

 “I don’t need anything from you.”

 “I never thought you did.”

He looked at her with a gaze that betrayed deep pain but all at once it disappeared, replaced by the mask of indifference he wore in every corridor. For such a steadfast addition to the Malfoy legacy, he seemed suddenly incredibly vulnerable.

In true temper-tantrum fashion he spun on his heel and slammed the cubicle door. He must have known she’d seen the crack in his Slytherin armour. Silence seeped from the other side of the thin wooden panel as Luna knelt next to the door, skirt fanning around her knees. She listened to the heavy breaths on the opposite side.

In through the nose, three four, out through the mouth, seven eight.

She heard him startle as she spoke. “Are you all right?”

 “Get lost, Lovegood. This doesn’t concern you.”

 This wouldn’t do. The heir of one of the most prolific pureblood families had been reduced to weeping in a girls’ bathroom and now hid from kindness. While many students in Hogwarts would adore the chance to get some dirt on the school’s most insufferable person—bar Filch, in Luna’s personal opinion—Luna didn’t have such a desire for revenge.

If she did she wouldn’t be kneeling on a damp floor with only a door to talk to. “I worry about you.”

 There was a long pause. “I didn’t ask you to.”

 “Nobody asks people to worry. It’s usually not something you can force people to do, it comes naturally.” Her father worried over her so often, but that was born out of love. She worried about her friends because she cared for them. With Draco, she saw a soul in need; someone wandering the castle in a constant state of limbo, torn between his persona and his truth. “I’ve worried about you since we first met.”

 Draco scoffed. “Here we go.”

 “You were in normal clothes. White shirt, some strange Mug… trousers. You had this sort of look on your face, like you wanted to prove yourself in Umbridge’s… um, what was it… Enforcement Team…?”

 “Inquisitorial Squad,” came the begrudging reply.

 Of course. It couldn’t be any less pretentious when it came to Umbridge. “You docked me five house points.”

 “You probably deserved it.”

 "You said my hair looked like I’d never brushed it.” Malfoy snorted a laugh, but Luna added, “I thought it was good of you to notice. Someone had borrowed my brush, and…”

 “Merlin, Lovegood, I never wanted your life story.”

 It was a snapped reply, but warmth hid there. After a moment of silence, she heard him sigh, a muffled sound as though it was behind his hands. “I’m tired.”

Finally, a crack in the armour. “Of what?”

“Everything. And just _tired._ I haven’t slept in…” Draco paused, then laughed. A mirthless sound. “I can’t even remember. Dreams take over and I wake up barely an hour since I went to sleep. I can’t concentrate in class, I’m tanking herbology.”

“You like herbology?”

“That… that does not leave this room, understood Lovegood?”

It was fortunate, perhaps, that Draco had found Luna and not someone more loose lipped in the bathrooms. Not that she supposed he would have talked to them, simply because he seemed in the habit of sniping at those who came close rather than talk.

“What do you dream about?” she asked. When Draco didn’t respond, she filled the silence if only to hear the echo bouncing around the alcove ceiling. “I sometimes dream about my mother. Before the accident, obviously, when she would dance in the garden and collect spider web strings. They said dreams can tell you more about what you need to know than thinking can. Muggles sell a lot of dream books, as though it’s a form of divination. I wonder what dreaming of my mother would mean to them…?”

“That you missed her.” Draco’s voice hissed in the echo of the bathroom, joined to the whispering end of Luna’s words. Almost as though he was captivated by the sound, Draco spilled more words into the silence. “I dream of darkness. Not just a dark night, but pitch black. And every night I see—their face… they stare at me, jeer, tell me I’m a disappointment. They tell me everyone I love will die if I don’t… do what they ask. I’ll only be good enough if I die trying to do what they want and I’m—”

His words cut off in a gulp. Even with a door between them Luna could feel the anxiety and rage peeling through him. Her father had written about empaths once. Perhaps that was what she was, sensing every change in Draco’s mood.

“Do you want to?” Luna asked.

Draco’s words followed a loud sniff. “Want to what?”

“Die trying.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Even though his voice dripped with scorn it didn’t quite match the scoff that came after. But Luna thought it was a valid question.  If he didn’t want to die trying, and that person would accept nothing less, that could only mean the person in question was not the type of friend he needed to grow. Draco was a flower trying to be a thorn. Any cut he tried to give would only come out as a leaf’s caress. 

“I hate that,” Draco murmured.

Luna blinked. “Hate what?”

“When you go quiet.” Another sniff, another sigh. “Means you’re thinking of something weird—you’re not called Loony for no reason.”

Draco couldn’t see her but she smiled anyway, beaming at the walls. “Name calling isn’t the worst thing.” Luna drew her jumper around herself, a faded, light blue woollen comfort her father made for Christmas. It frayed at the edges, and it tickled her neck, but all its faults and frazzles made it _hers._

“Tell me more about the dreams,” she said.

“So you can write it on the girls’ bathroom walls?”

Luna didn’t respond. And when Luna didn’t respond, Draco’s voice seemed all the meeker when he finally spoke into the silence. “I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do any of it. I keep seeing my family, even people I’ve only seen in pictures, and they’re screaming as he laughs at me. Sometimes I wake up, but sometimes…. Sometimes I feel like I can’t. I close my eyes and it’s as though—they’re right in front of me. Tells me I’m useless as my father screams, and my mother dies in front of me every single night.” Another sniff, a heavy sigh, and a panicked breath. “What if it’s actually happening? What if what I’m seeing is happening in Azkaban right now? And the dreams aren’t dreams, but something— _real_ … ”

Many people would look at Draco Malfoy and think him cruel. He certainly could be. But that wasn’t what came through those words. A deep, visceral pain was carved into his very bones, unable to heal. Luna closed her eyes against the dim light of the bathroom.

“Of everything you’ve said, there’s one thing I’m certain of. The things you see, the ghosts in your dreams…” She reached out a pale hand between the bathroom stalls; an offer of friendship, of comfort, should Draco dare to take it. “They’re not real.”

Seconds passed with the dripping of taps, a draught cooling her fingertips. She’d stay there until he was ready, even if it took until the stars changed their constellations in the sky. Luna closed her eyes and the draught was replaced by tentative, clammy heat, the soft pull of fingers wrapping around her own, palm slipping perfectly against palm.

Draco squeezed her hand. Luna squeezed back. 

It was two in the morning when Luna slipped beneath the soft sheets of her bed. Her favourite hat sat watching her, its lion’s mane pride of place on her bedside table. One day she’d paint a picture of the Strength tarot card with that hat as its inspiration. A constant reminder of strength and invention against all odds, the swirling beat of a storm behind it.

Maybe she’d give it to the Slytherin in need of a friend.

~~~~~~~

 

She always smiled at him.

He didn’t know why, but whenever he caught her in the hall or passing at dinner, the corners of her lips would turn upwards and her eyes softened, and he’d feel his anger slip just for a moment.

Those moments came to be something he lived for. Unlike the conspiratorial glances from those who’d rather see him suffer, or those who did their best to detect the weakest point of his facade, every glance she spared him was genuine. Nobody taunted him about his dreams. Nobody giggled as he walked by.

She hadn’t told anyone. Not a soul.

A secret he’d shared from the depths of him had halved. More than halved. Shared on another’s shoulders.

Now he had more reasons than anxiety and tears to escape to the opposite side of the castle.

Eventually, she became the only one that mattered.

 

~~~~~~~

 

“Sit still.”

“I _am_ still.”

“Sit stiller.”

Draco obeyed with a huff that made Luna’s mouth quirk. She’d picked bluebells fresh that morning, but only the violet ones that went best with Draco’s hair. Some would say she’d incur the wrath of the fairies by doing it but they were quite reasonable when she explained what she needed them for. She sent a silent word of appreciation as she wound the stalks around little puffs of blonde, twisting the threads through to make them stay in place. He’d be a soft Medusa, the perfect Goddess for spring.

Of course she wouldn’t say this to Draco, who until now had been quite an obedient subject.

“You’re going to make me look stupid.”

“Bluebells can’t do what’s already done.” 

“Getting brave, Lovegood.”

“I’m always brave, Draco.”

By the time she was finished he’d be pretty as a picture. Not that he wasn’t already—she’d often admired his eyes, the way they took in every detail of the room as though searching for the easiest target.

Or, as he’d done lately, the nearest exit.

But spring was a time for renewal, she’d told him, during one of their many nights in the abandoned bathroom. Once Luna had had the misfortune of bumping into Moaning Myrtle, who’d insisted Luna’d stolen something from her. She didn’t know what until Malfoy mentioned the poor ghost by name, while they were sitting near the pipes, and ended up with Myrtle bursting through his chest as though summoned.

Since then they’d taken their visits to the towers. There was a small tower in the eastern corner where they bet on who could stay awake long enough to see the sunrise. It was getting easier and easier for Luna to win. The amount of times Malfoy dropped to sleep against the cold of the tower walls earned her more chocolate frogs than ever before.

He needed the rest, so Luna never woke him. He usually managed himself, either naturally or with a start and a sweat as a nightmare overcame him. Luna could usually tell if he had some trouble, so she’d cough or sing and take him out of slumber in a much nicer way. 

One morning, when sunrise cast its amber glow across scattered clouds, Luna hummed her mother’s song to herself. They’d have to go down to breakfast soon. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of what she’d eat, its demand for sustenance interrupting her flow. Maybe she’d have pastry. Or bacon. Or…

“Keep singing,” Draco mumbled. He’d inclined his head towards her shoulder, his voice full of sleep. “Please.”

A request which couldn’t go denied. Luna put her desire for bacon and toast and marmalade to rest, closed her eyes against the light, and sang.

 

~~~~~~~

 

Nobody knew pale stars danced in the tower at night. Where, under the cover of darkness, two distant souls found freedom in one another’s frenzied abandon, as though drawn to each other by the fabric of the universe.  Owl feathers and hooting mixed with the fast paced tunes of an enchanted radio, moulding into a perfect, peculiar melody.

Luna’s movements were fluid as water, fingers tracing air as Draco’s arms cut a blade edge, slicing through the space around him. It shouldn’t work. Opposites never met well. But they did here, soaring on the music like a dragon in the jet stream.

They danced alone with only the wind for company, until clusters of diamonds twinkled in the black of night.

When their arms were spent, and their energy lagging, the two sat together on the edge of the tower. The radio had long since silenced, and they stared out into the inky sky. Impossibilities lingered in that sky. Luna breathed in, Scottish pine and conifers pleasing her nose. Draco did the same.

“It’s so quiet,” he murmured. Luna couldn’t imagine he’d had many quiet moments lately, the way his mind always had something to say. She hummed her agreement, eyes adjusting to the dark, head tilted almost completely to the universe beyond.

“They say if you concentrate hard enough you’ll be able to see the Sky Spirits,” she said.

Draco arched a pale brow, but against expectations of him he didn’t scoff. Instead he followed Luna’s gaze, as though he might catch a glimpse. “Sky Spirits?”

“They look like eels with wings. They’re translucent, so you can’t see them in the day, but at night the stars shimmer when their bodies pass by. Nobody’s ever been able to catch one, but they’ve been observed all over the world. They’re _very_ good for wishes. If you spot one, you make a wish and the next day it comes true.”

A breeze whipped up and Luna drew her jumper tighter against the chill. Wool tickled at her cheek as Malfoy unwound his scarf and wrapped it around her shoulders, the other half anchored over his own. Luna smiled to herself, still searching the silver-dotted canvas above.

Minutes passed, the rustles of the Forbidden Forest punctuating the silence. It was a great night for astronomy, yet nobody had thought to take up the opportunity. Maybe they were stuffed with apple pies from dinner, or…

“Luna,” Draco murmured, voice barely a whisper. Luna’s smile grew at the sound of her name.

“Yes, Draco?”

“Tell me more about the Sky Spirits.”

 

~~~~~

 

Summer approached. Which was probably why it seemed silly to miss something as simple as a jumper, but she could hardly go around telling people she wanted it for late night dancing with the Slytherin prince. The one she wore didn’t give her the right _feeling._ It was a darker blue and didn’t fit her. It scratched her arms, and it tickled her chest, but it was the only thing in the lost and found that fit her. The moment she stepped into the tower Draco’s eyes darkened.

“What happened to your jumper?” He winced as one of the owls flapped their wings, as though they sensed his distaste.

“Oh. I assume someone borrowed it.”

“Who borrows things without asking? That’s stealing.” Draco gave a scoff, as though he should know it best. Luna supposed after almost seven years of semi-tyranny he would.

Luna gestured to the over-large sleeves. “Sometimes people hide my things. I usually find them all by the time the school year ends, though.”

“They take your things.”

“Well…”

“Who?”

He wasn’t right. Something about the way his temper flared, the shadows beneath his eyes exaggerated into dark crescent moons. He held his arm at an odd angle, hiding it from her despite the two layers of shirt sleeves and a large cloak to cover it.

“I don’t know.” Luna watched him closely, the inner anger at his own problems morphing into daring righteousness for hers. That evening wasn’t to be spent dancing, or singing, or watching the sky. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. “Are you sure you…?”

“I can’t stay here tonight.” Draco sniffed, unwashed hair dangling into his face. He looked more and more like Snape every day… “I have things to do.”

Something sharp and heavy poked at Luna’s chest. A prickle of disappointment, maybe even offence, that he could dismiss it. “All right. What do you…?”

“I’ll see you later.”

And just like that, Draco brushed past her like a ghost on Halloween, as though she was nothing but a translucent silhouette against the wind. Luna wrapped the scrapy material of the not-hers jumper around herself. It felt like she stayed like that until lunch the next day, her arms stretched in a constant state of comfort around her body. Even when Hermione Granger spoke to her in the hallway she couldn’t do much but smile and pass it off as dreaminess.

Until of course, she heard the shouting.

The whole school seemed to hear it, in fact, but only a few saw the red sparks bursting through the small corridor outside the Great Hall. By the time Luna scrambled to a place where she was tall enough to see, one of her friends ushered a Ravenclaw boy with a busted nose straight past her and up the staircase. It could have been her imagination, but the boy glanced at her in a mix of fear and accusation.

Which to Luna, only meant one thing. The moment she returned to her dorm with all her borrowed things displayed on her bed, one question spun in her mind.

“Why did you hurt that boy?”

Luna had arrived at the tower early. There was technically not a lot she could do up there but seethe. She’d found her appetite lacking, a rare occurrence, which only meant one thing.

She was angry. And Luna didn’t really know what she was like when she was angry, only that she didn’t want to punch someone in the face with a hex that could have easily torn a boy’s head off.

The moment Draco’s blonde hair fluttered into view, Luna couldn’t help herself. “Why did you hurt him?” She repeated. Infuriatingly, because there was a distinct side of Draco that could be nothing but, he _shrugged._ “I told you I get them back eventually. There’s no need for violence.”

“He deserved it.”

Code for what Draco felt he deserved. It was written all over his face. He might have wanted to seem impassive but his cheek twitched in the usual way it did when he wanted to punch something. Luna dropped her hands in frustration. “It was only in fun, Draco.”

“It wasn’t _right…_ ” Draco caught himself, temper subdued to a point he could manage. He cricked his neck, the mask of his father in place once again. She’d heard many things about Lucius Malfoy, none of them good. For anyone to please him they’d have to have a spotless lineage or a ton of money, and that didn’t seem like the type of person who could set a shining example for a struggling son. Draco watched her with his ice-like eyes. “Anyway, I got your stuff back. Don’t thank me, _please,_ I can’t take the praise.”

Luna frowned. “I didn’t… I mean I wasn’t…”

“I spent time trying to do something nice for you. To repay you for… whatever this was. And that’s the appreciation I get?”

“I don’t need payment for being a friend.” Perhaps a novel concept to someone who learned to deal with money as the driving factor in most situations. But Draco didn’t budge.

“I have better things to do than argue with a Lovegood,” he spat. The way he said her last name, as though it was disgusting to even taste it on his tongue, stabbed like a blade at her stomach.

The way he brushed her aside with a sneer, twisted it.

 

~~~~~

 

She was too pure for him.

Too good for him.

She didn’t need money. She didn’t need fame. She didn’t need to uphold any reputation that wasn’t hers to carry.

What he wouldn’t give for that freedom, that sense of unbridled bliss. To be ignorant of expectation above his status. To not have to solve anything with violence.

To not even know violence as its own language.

She was too pure for him. She’d see it eventually, and realise that above all else she did not deserve to be dragged into the depths of his family’s making.

Part of him wanted to tell her. To scream at her to leave, to go somewhere safe before it all exploded like that boy’s nose. But he didn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to send her away or to shatter her dreams.

So he removed himself, like a thorn from a heart, and left it to heal on its own.

 

 

~~~~~~~

 

 

“I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Ten nights and counting, in fact. She’d been in the tower from sunset to dawn, anticipating news that he’d run away or he was chasing another girl around the castle. Someone to distract him from the life he seemed determined to make. When she arrived that evening she’d stalled by the steps.

Draco was pale and sickly looking, as though Moaning Myrtle herself had inhabited his body to make him particularly queasy. He was thinner, arms spread as he leaned on the tower’s walls. A sweat settled on his brow, and his ice-blonde hair hung loose around his eyes. He didn’t even look at her.

“Don’t tell me you _missed_ me.”

There was a curtness to his voice, an invitation to goad him, or to hurt her. Luna did not feel compelled towards either option. “Alright. I won’t.”

He looked at her then, truly looked at her, and for once Luna wished the mask came off. Death Eaters wore masks to hide their identity, but Draco wore his to protect more than himself from harm.

Luna had learned long ago that she didn’t need protecting.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. This time Draco paused, gaze drifting over the trees as though they’d answer for him.

As though he was taking one last look.

“I wanted some peace and quiet, but doesn’t look like I’ll get that, does it?”

Ten days ago Luna would walk straight over and stand beside him. She was peaceful, and quiet, and her presence by his side never annoyed him. But something about his energy rattled her: the way his shoulders tensed, the fists his fingers made.

She took a tentative step forward. “You’re planning something.” She’d seen that sort of tension before; a desire to have things done and have them done quick, rip them off before they hurt too badly. A need to escape, to run, either to a better place or any place which wasn’t the one they were already in.

Her mother had worn that expression so many times Luna had seen it on her own face in the mirror, every time she missed her father or wanted to return to the meadows back home. Somehow, she doubted Draco wanted to run back to his mansion, the scent of expectation hanging everywhere he went.

“I need to leave.” He told the wind, for his attention seemed rapt on the nature outside.

Luna’s breath caught. “Leave?”

“I can’t stay here.”

“Is it the dreams…?”

“Dreams don’t tell me anything I don’t already know. If I stay here I’m ruined. My father has savings in Gringotts, they’ll have to give it to me. Start my life over somewhere else. Ilvermorny will take me, I’ll—”

“No.” She said it so determinedly he didn’t have an answer. Luna couldn’t let him throw away so many years of hard work just because of… well, she didn’t know what it was because of. But his arm, and the threats, and the fear for his family didn’t take Merlin to figure out who was involved. “Stay at Hogwarts. You don’t need your father’s money, or an escape plan. All you need to do is tell someone, tell Dumbledore...”

Draco growled and smashed his fist against the wall. 

“Get lost, Lovegood. This doesn’t concern you. This _never_ concerned you.”

“You made it concern me!” Luna had accepted long ago that Draco opened his circle very little, and even then she doubted Crabbe and Goyle understood this part of him, if they’d ever seen it at all. Which made everything he went through now her problem to bear. Luna placed her hand over his, cold and clammy. He stiffened beneath her touch but the more her warmth seeped into his skin the more he relaxed. As though she could convince him through contact alone.

“No matter what you do, I will support you. You know that, Draco. Don’t you?”

He shook his head. “You can’t possibly… you don’t know what he’s asking of me.”

“I don’t care.” The words came out before she heard their meaning, lost in a rush of emotion. If he left now she might never see him again. And what was that to someone who had spent so many months with paintbrushes in her hands, bluebells on her mind, dancing among owl feathers in her daydreams? “You’ll make the right decision. I know you will, because I’m scared that if you don’t…”

His lips met hers. Luna had imagined what kissing would be like. Everyone had their own views on the experience, some good, some bad, but they’d never mentioned it could feel _complete._

He peeled away, and Luna’s gaze fell on the boy she knew, not the mask and not the Slytherin prince, but the _soul_ of hurt, and pain who’d come to laugh with her when the rest of the castle slept.

Draco inclined his forehead to hers.

“I wanted the last real thing I did to be with you,” he whispered.

Luna fluttered her eyes closed, one hand on her chest as his breath lingered in hers.

“Draco…" 

But when she opened them again it was to a space in the breeze, the warmth of Draco’s body already replaced by the sharp touch of evening.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

In the middle of the night, while a blonde girl slept, arms wrapped around a lion who reminded her so much of a boy she’d kissed, that same boy made his way to the tower, hawthorn wand gripped in his hand. His stomach felt tight, and he’d resisted vomiting on the stairs, the memory of dreams circling his head and fueling his feet onward.

They’d die. They’d die, they’d die, they’d _die_ if he didn’t do this.

It didn’t make the steps any less steep or the drive to run any weaker. The warmth of the girl’s lips had long since faded from his mouth, the last remnant of a life he could have enjoyed if karma weren’t so cruel.

She deserved more than he could give her.

Maybe he’d have his family protect her once this was done. He could make sure she was far, far away from it all. He glanced out of the window at the sky. Of all the nights he longed to see a shimmer across the black, it was this one.

She’d told him he could do anything he wanted. Just talk to Dumbledore, move away from the path he’d chosen and start a new road. It might not be any easier, but he could be stay true to himself. He could stay true to her.

Words bubbled on his tongue. _I don’t want this, save me Dumbledore, if anyone can help me you can._

But almost as if it sensed hesitation, his forearm tingled and burned as though the mark flared there for the first time.

Mumbles sounded ahead of him. There, in the tower, a long-haired wizard silhouetted against the moonlight, his long beard floating in the breeze.

Draco extended the wand, steeled his nerve, and let go of the life he wanted. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Dumbledore was dead.

Everyone mourned the headmaster in their own way, whether it was in quiet solitude or sobbing into the arms of friends. His passing—no, his murder—rippled throughout the castle.

But it wasn’t the only loss that sang in Luna’s heart.

Malfoy was gone _._ He’d disappeared in the early hours of morning leaving nothing but accusation in his wake. Luna grasped the painting in her hand, edges of the paper crinkling across the lion’s mane. He’d never see the way the bluebells framed the lion’s face, or the way the blonde boy next to him had come to friend him so. To not fear the very strength that overcame weakness inside of him. The eagerness to do better, to prove himself, to earn his place, and have the confidence to do what was right.

Luna closed her eyes against the whispers and the sobs, the gasps of disbelief. No tears came, her focus on a place entirely removed from the confines of Hogwarts’ walls.

All Draco had to do was remember who he was when he let go beneath the stars. When he connected with the purest part of himself that had nothing to do with blood or heritage, and embraced it.

She wished upon all the spirits in the sky that he would.  

 

 

_Say you’ll remember._

_I will love you til the end of time._

 

 

 


End file.
